Yeadon man sentenced for role in mortgage scheme

PHILADELPHIA — A 44-year-old Yeadon man was sentenced Thursday to 12½ years in a federal prison for his role in a $20 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Eric Ponder had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, wire and loan fraud charges, said Judge R. Barclay Surrick, as well as charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine under a separate criminal complaint.

The scheme involved more than 100 properties, mostly in West Philadelphia, which were purchased between May 2004 and February 2009.

Ponder’s plea agreement and other court records have been sealed, but the criminal information in the fraud scheme indicated that he held himself out as a real estate developer and president of Ponder Development Inc., a Philadelphia company providing home improvement services.

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The co-conspirators typically inflated house values on mortgage applications with the help of bogus appraisals and phony documents, then split the proceeds among themselves, according to the information.

Ponder helped facilitate the scheme by recruiting and paying off “straw buyers,” and assisting them in submitting fraudulent loan applications to various lending institutions, the information said.

Prosecutors claimed he also submitted loan applications in his own name that included false information and filed fraudulent invoices for construction work that was never perfumed, justifying payments he made to himself from loan proceeds.

Some of these mortgages were never recorded with the City of Philadelphia Records Department, the information said, which allowed multiple mortgages to be taken out on the same property from different lenders. Most of the properties have since defaulted on the loans.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael S. Lowe said Ponder helped defraud 21 separate properties and was directly responsible for more than $3.5 million in losses. Though Ponder allegedly received $1.4 million from the scheme, Lowe said that money is nowhere to be found.

The judge identified Ponder as a “career criminal,” who has prior convictions for distributing cocaine and kidnapping. Lowe noted the mortgage fraud scheme began just three months after Ponder finished serving the minimum in the kidnapping case (though Ponder said he lived in a halfway house during the last three years of that sentence) and that once that scheme dried up with the mortgage crisis in 2008, he went back to his old habits of selling cocaine.

Lowe also said Ponder is facing charges in Chester for allegedly taking $262 from Harrah’s Casino in July while on pretrial release for these two cases, despite the fact that prosecutors handed him a “golden opportunity” to keep his nose clean while on bail and cut his potential prison term in half.

Ponder apologized to the court and his family for his actions in the fraud scheme, but said he was shocked to learn the theft charges were pending because he was never arrested in that incident. He denied taking the money, saying he understood the severity of the situation and would not jeopardize the deal he had been offered.

While Lowe had asked for a sentence between 151 to 188 months — still 10 years below the low end of the “career criminal” guidelines — defense attorney Louis Savino asked that the judge impose a sentence of only 120 months, which he argued would satisfy the punishment and rehabilitative factors involved in these cases.

The judge noted that Ponder was clearly an intelligent man who did to need to get involved with fraud or drugs, but chose to anyway.

“It is a bit disheartening that whenever Mr. Ponder gets himself out of jail, he seems to get himself back into trouble,” the judge said.

In addition to prison time, the judge imposed eight years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $3,132,057 for the victim banks, to be paid jointly with five other defendants. Ponder was remanded to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence immediately.

About the Author

Alex Rose covers court proceedings for the Daily Times. He also writes a weekly science column. Reach the author at arose@delcotimes.com
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